The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - FAQ The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff. Visit our FAQ Help to learn more FAQ How much sex, violence, and profanity are in this movie? For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Silence of the Lambs can be found here . What is 'The Silence of the Lambs' about? When Catherine Martin ( Brooke Smith ), the daughter of Tennessee Senator Ruth Martin ( Diane Baker ), is kidnapped by a serial killer known only as Buffalo Bill ( Ted Levine ), F.B.I. agent-in-training Clarice Starling ( Jodie Foster ) is called upon to interact with psychopathic, cannibalistic killer psychiatrist Doctor Hannibal Lecter ( Anthony Hopkins ) who may have insights into the identity of Buffalo Bill. Is "The Silence of the Lambs" based on a book?

The movie is based on The Silence of the Lambs, a 1988 novel by American writer Thomas Harris. The novel was adapted for the movie by American screenwriter Ted Tally. The Silence of the Lambs won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. There have since been two movie sequels, Hannibal (2001) and Hannibal Rising (2007) and one prequel Red Dragon (2002), also based on novels by Thomas Harris. Prior to The Silence of the Lambs, there was another Hannibal Lecter movie, Manhunter (1986), which was based on Harris' 1981 novel, Red Dragon. What does the title mean? Clarice tells Lecter how she was orphaned at 10 years of age and sent to live on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. One night she awoke to a terrible screaming and discovered the rancher was slaughtering the spring lambs. She grabbed a lamb and tried to rescue it. When she was found the next day, the rancher sent her away to live in an orphanage. The experience had a traumatic psychological effect on Clarice that haunts her for life.

Lecter concludes that Clarice's fervent desire to save Catherine Martin will ultimately help her to silence the sound of the lambs screaming in her mind. When does the story take place? A picture of one of Buffalo Bill's victims has the year 1989 on it, so it must be either 1989 or the beginning of 1990. This is also implied when Chilton mentions the date of Hannibal's attack on a nurse (July 8th, 1981), and his remark that Hannibal has not seen a woman in 8 years. This presumes that the nurse was indeed the last woman Hannibal came into contact with, which is a reasonable assumption, given that Hannibal was locked up in a dungeon with only male orderlies. What does 'quid pro quo' mean? Quid pro quo is Latin for "what for what" or "something for something." It refers to a reciprocal exchange. In the context of the movie, Lecter promises to feed information about Buffalo Bill to Clarice but only if she will tell him things about herself in return. What kind of moths was Buffalo Bill raising?

Roden ( Dan Butler ) and Dr Pilcher ( Paul Lazar ) identify the one taken from the victim's throat as a Death's-Head moth (Acherontia styx), a species found only in Asia. In reality, the cocoon was made from Tootsie-Rolls and gummy bears, in case the actress swallowed it. Photos of a real Death's Head moth can be seen here . Why did Lecter make such a point of telling Starling about the census taker he ate? The infamous line where Lecter tells Starling that he ate a census taker's liver with fava beans and a "nice Chianti" has a few meanings: On the one hand, it's a grotesque display of power. By mentioning that he did something like this to Starling, he's reminding her of what he is and, more so, of what he's capable of and how he regards selected people or people in general. On the other hand, apart from containing alcohol, a Chianti is likely to be rich in tyramine - especially the more so when aged, whereas fava beans also contain a considerable amount of tyramine. Liver that is usually eaten from animals can also be high in tyramine.

For obvious reasons, less is known about how a human liver differs in its constituents from that of an animal in regards to diet, potential poisoning and specific interactions. This may either be mere coincidence, simply reflect Hannibal's cannibalistic taste, or could possibly be an attempt to confuse, mock or provoke students of psychiatry or the psychology of criminalistic behavior, such as Clarice. Anything beyond that is speculative and elusive to investigations, as is probably intended, considering the context and the manner in which the statement was made as well as the nature of the individual it came from. How was Hannibal able to use the pen tip as a key for the handcuffs? Often in film, when a prisoner escapes from handcuffs without a key, a small, thin metal object is used. Until the release of this film, it'd been done many times by other characters in other movies. So it wasn't too hard for the writers to convince us that Hannibal could do the same thing. Also, he's an inventive genius, which makes it even more believable. In Thomas Harris' novel, the escape is almost exactly the same.

Hannibal does steal a pen, though it wasn't Chilton's, it belonged to an attendant who had carelessly left it behind. Hannibal spends weeks cutting the shaft of the ink cartridge using only a small burr on a bolt that holds his bunk bed against the wall of his cell. When he has a length of the shaft cut to the right size, he cuts 2 small grooves in it lengthwise. He hides it in his cheek, and a scan with a metal detecting wand misses it. In his new cell, while guarded by Pembry and Boyle, he uses the pen tip to bend the section of the shaft outward, making a key that he uses to undo the cuffs. The movie makes the scene a bit simpler, probably to save time and control the pacing. How could Hannibal possibly overpower both Pembry and Boyle? It was two armed men against one prisoner. Aside from the obvious answers like Hannibal undoing his cuffs with a piece of the pen he stole from Chilton, the bigger issue is that Boyle and Pembry didn't have the kind of respect for Hannibal's inventive genius that Barney did at the institution in Baltimore. Essentially, they considered Hannibal to be merely a prisoner to babysit.

Hannibal's plan from the beginning was to get himself transferred away from Chilton (who he considered a tormentor). If you watch the beginning of the escape scene, you can easily see the mistakes Boyle and Pembry make: Boyle puts the tray on the floor near Hannibal when he rolls up the sketches (with the sketches placed on the table that Hannibal eats from, this may have also been part of Hannibal's plan; Boyle probably should've handed the tray to Pembry.) Pembry, when removing the key from the lock, is standing around much too casually, not watching Hannibal closely enough, and even turns his back on him and begins to walk out of the cage.) Additionally, Boyle probably should not have been allowed to carry a pocket knife as a personal item when working with so dangerous a prisoner. In the end, Hannibal, over the course of a few days or so that he was incarcerated in Memphis, had ample enough time to observe both men and to discern the weaknesses in their procedures. Why does Clarice believe that "Jack Gordon" is actually Buffalo Bill?

Her suspicions are aroused when "Gordon" asks if Frederika Bimmell was "a great big fat person." Lecter pointed out that all of the victims were larger women, because the killer wants their skins to fit onto a man's body. That Gumb's first thought of a woman he didn't otherwise recognize was her size was enough to make Starling want to find out more. Once inside his house, Clarice recognizes the Death's Head moth in the living room. Gumb gives his name as "Jack Gordon." Those initials, J.G., are consistent with "Jame Gumb" and "John Grant," both aliases named by Crawford. How does the movie end? From Lecter's advice -- that Bill covets that which he sees every day -- Clarice and Ardelia deduce that the first victim could have been someone who Bill knew personally. Clarice drives to Belvedere, Ohio to talk with the father of the first victim, Frederika Bimmel. In looking over Frederika's bedroom, Clarice finds a music box ballerina, in which she finds a false bottom that contains pictures obviously missed during previous investigations.

On the pictures, Frederika is seen posing, wearing only underwear, suggesting that there was indeed an unknown man in her life who took the pictures, most likely her murderer. Clarice goes through a wardrobe and notices the triangular gussets on Frederika's dresses match the pieces of skin Bill cut from one of his victims. Clarice calls Jack Crawford ( Scott Glenn ) to inform him that Bill is making a "woman suit" of real skin. Crawford is already in route to Chicago, having identified Bill as Jame Gumb, but they find that the house where he's supposedly living has been abandoned. Clarice continues to poke around in Belvedere and interviews one of Frederika's friends, who points to the house of "old Mrs Littman" where she was often hanging around. Mrs Littman doesn't live there any more, but the current resident, who calls himself Jack Gordon, offers to give her Mrs Littman's son's business card and invites Clarice inside to wait. When she notices spools of thread and a Death's-Head moth, she realizes that Jack Gordon is really Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb.

She pulls her gun on him, but Gumb leads her on a wild goose chase into the basement, where he has Catherine Martin imprisoned in a well. Gumb dons a night vision mask and turns out the lights, leaving Clarice to feel around in the dark. When he makes the mistake of cocking his gun, Clarice shoots him. Catherine is subsequently rescued. In the final scenes, Clarice is shown graduating from the Academy. At the party that follows, she receives a phone call from Lecter, calling from the airport on the island of Bimini in the Bahamas. He assures her that he's not about to come looking for her and requests that she extend him the same courtesy, which Clarice cannot do, of course. He then says that he must hang up because "I'm having an old friend for dinner," as he watches Dr. Frederick Chilton deplane. What happens to Dr. Chilton? The closing, where Hannibal says: "I'm having an old friend for dinner" as he watches Dr. Chilton deplane, strongly suggests that Chilton ended up as one of Hannibal's meals.

A small reference was made in the sequel novel Hannibal, where it was mentioned that Chilton disappeared seven years earlier while on vacation, strongly suggesting Hannibal had gotten his revenge (albeit in the novel, Chilton disappeared in Jamaica, not the Bahamas). However, this is never specifically stated in the sequel movie. The only reference to Dr. Chilton in Hannibal is made by Barney, when he says that Lecter, when possible, preferred to eat "the rude," and Dr. Chilton "was a bad man," which also strongly implies Chilton became Hannibal's victim. Is Hannibal Lecter sociopathic, psychopathic, or something else? In the novel Red Dragon, Will Graham calls Lecter a "pure sociopath," but makes a point in mentioning that he only calls him this because a more appropriate term doesn't exist, meaning Lecter doesn't actually fit any psychological profile.This is echoed in the film version of The Silence of the Lambs, where Dr. Chilton refers to Lecter as a "pure psychopath," but given Chilton's incompetence, it makes sense that he would term Lecter's pathology so simply.

Another reference to Graham's description in Red Dragon is made when Clarice tells a young security guard in the Tennessee asylum that "they don't have a name" for what Lecter is. According to the film's director, Jonathan Demme, Lecter is a good man trapped in an insane mind. Anthony Hopkins plays him as a refined, eloquent and seductive character who is very careful and cunning in his crimes. This is more in line with a sociopathic pathology, as sociopaths are known to be more organized in their actions. If you consider the prequel novel Hannibal Rising to be canon (which many fans of the Lecter mythology don't), it is suggested that Hannibal's pathology is a result of irreparable trauma he suffered as a child; however, others contest this simple summary of the novel, and maintain that Lecter's childhood trauma is merely one, if not the main event that causes his already sociopathic tendencies to manifest themselves at a young age; this is suggested by Hannibal continuing to murder people, even after dealing with the people responsible for the trauma. In other words, Lecter would have become a serial killer anyway, but events from his childhood simply accelerated the process and provided him with a special focus.

Some viewers even maintain that Lecter isn't actually insane at all but does horrific things simply because he wants to and is smart enough to get away with them. They maintain that the people in the novels and films refer to Lecter as insane simply because it's easier to term him as such; it gives them a false sense of security and makes them feel that they know how Lecter's mind works when they actually have no idea. Simply put, it's possible that Lecter is a sociopath or a psychopath but, considering Graham's description, it's much more likely that Lecter is just pure evil. Why does Hannibal treat Barney Matthews so well? Over the years that Hannibal is incarcerated, Barney develops respect for Lecter's ingenuity and intelligence, not to mention, respects how dangerous Lecter is. Lecter develops respect for Barney's courteous and kind manner, and in the sequel, Barney points out that he never felt in danger after Lecter's jailbreak, as Lecter preferred to eat "the rude". In the novel, Lecter and Barney have a short exchange before Lecter is transferred: Lecter thanks Barney for being decent to him, and Barney accepts and wishes him well. Is this film a sequel to Manhunter?

There are two schools of thought on this. One could certainly argue that The Silence of the Lambs is a sequel to Manhunter, since it features three of the same characters from Manhunter, that is, Hannibal Lecter, Jack Crawford, and Dr. Frederick Chilton (played respectively by Brian Cox , Dennis Farina , and Benjamin Hendrickson in Manhunter and Anthony Hopkins , Scott Glenn , and Anthony Heald in The Silence of the Lambs). On the other hand, Manhunter was not a successful film, which is why Dino De Laurentiis chose not to produce this film. When The Silence of the Lambs was released, it was not marketed as a sequel to Manhunter. All references from the book that mention Will "the Red Dragon" Graham have been excised from the film. The two returning cast members, Frankie Faison and Dan Butler , play different roles. It's also worth noting that in early drafts, when the producers were not sure if they could use the characters from Manhunter, Ted Tally changed those characters' names to cut all ties with Manhunter. They were eventually changed back.

However, given that Tally also wrote the screenplay for Red Dragon, which featured three out of four actors returning to their roles, including Faison playing his Silence role, it is more likely that Manhunter is meant to be part of a separate continuity, while Red Dragon is meant to be a direct prequel to The Silence of the Lambs. What are the differences between the Theatrical Version and the Workprint? There are some differences between the Workprint version and the Theatrical Release. The Workprint is more or less a final cut of the movie. Beside many minor changes, here and there are some scenes, which were removed in the Theatrical Version. The image quality of the Workprint is especially in dark scenes pretty bad. The Workprint got an alternate Soundtrack. In some parts there is no or different music and in other parts the same music compared to the Thatrical Version. For example at the beginning when Starling runs through the wood. The Workprint features a different dark/haunting music with a musical box motive. Furthermore all the Credits and the location names are missing in the Workprint. A detailed comparison between both versions with pictures can be found here.

The secret joke in Silence of the Lambs : movies by mrcchapman x4 "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." Great line from Silence of the Lambs everyone knows. But most people don't realise Dr Hannibal Lecter is making a medical joke. Lecter could be treated with drugs called monoamine oxidase inhibitors - MAOIs. As a psychiatrist, Lecter knows this. The three things you can't eat with MAOIs? Liver, beans, wine. Lecter is a) cracking a joke for his own amusement, and b) saying he's not taking his meds. Edit: Thanks for the gold! Glad you enjoyed finding this out as much as I did. The Silence of the Lambs (Literature) - TV Tropes The Silence of the Lambs You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account Share Literature / The Silence of the Lambs aka: Silence Of The Lambs × Dr. Lecter: What does he do, this man you seek? Agent Starling: He kills women. Dr. Lecter: No. That is incidental.

What is the first and principal thing he does, what needs does he serve by killing? The Silence of the Lambs is a 1988 novel by Thomas Harris ( Black Sunday ), and the second after Red Dragon to star Hannibal Lecter . There's another serial killer on the loose, "Buffalo Bill," who abducts women, kills and skins them, and shoves chrysalitic moths down their throats. Behavioral Sciences, the section of the FBI that deals with violent crime, is stuck; section chief Jack Crawford has no idea how to stop this guy. The game-changer comes in the form of ambitious young trainee Clarice Starling. Pulled into the investigation almost by accident, she is sent to interview the incarcerated psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter—"Hannibal the Cannibal"—for insight into Buffalo Bill's psychosis. Lecter agrees to help in exchange for Clarice's most traumatic memories, and the two develop a strange symbiotic relationship. And the clock is ticking, because Buffalo Bill's latest victim is the daughter of a US Senator, and if they can't get him now, all hell will break loose...

This book was a huge success, and was adapted into an even more successful 1991 film starring Jodie Foster as Clarice and Anthony Hopkins in a career-defining performance as Lecter; the film became the third, and to this day, the last film ever to win all five major Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay), which for a February-released thriller/horror film was astonishing. (The other two films to sweep the major Oscars are It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest .) Of all the Hannibal Lecter books and films, The Silence of the Lambs is perhaps the only true classic, and indeed both series are often referred to as "The Silence of the Lambs Series". It was followed by a sequel, Hannibal (1999) and a prequel, Hannibal Rising (2006). Overall, one of the most successful and widely popular book/film series of the modern era, blending the merits of crime novel and literature, detective thriller and art film, and permeating popular culture with its scenes, themes, and its characters who have become household names.

Its influence on other works in the same genre can't be underestimated. The Tropes, Clarice, tell me about the Tropes... Adapted Out : Many of the minor characters and short scenes from the book are missing from the film, due to time constraints. One notably missing is the Johns Hopkins surgeon, whose scene with Crawford might have covered some of the more problematic representation of transgender people. As it is, a single line that "transsexuals are very passive" handwaves this in the film. Affably Evil : The cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter is an interesting example in that nobody can be really sure if his affability is just an act, particularly as he's prone to sniping insults at visitors who displease him. The simple answer is that he is genuinely nice and respectful to people who are genuinely nice and respectful to him, exhibiting this both towards Clarice Starling and an orderly who broke his arm to stop him from attacking a nurse, but was otherwise always respectful and never rude. As the orderly points out at one point, Lecter " prefers to eat the rude ".

All Girls Want Bad Boys : Benjamin Raspail's infatuation with Jame Gumb, despite Gumb's penchant for "the bad thing" and wearing Klaus as an apron. All Men Are Perverts : You can count on one hand the number of men who don't hit on Clarice. And, arguably, the number who don't have some kind of psychosexual disorder, given the subject matter. Aluminum Christmas Trees : There really are a couple of types of moths that have skull shaped patterns on them. AM/FM Characterization : While in the prison cell in Tennessee, Hannibal Lecter listens to classical music just before his prison break. This tells the audience that even though he's a psychopathic cannibal, he's still Wicked Cultured . Animal Motifs : Moths, as a symbol of transformation; lambs, as a symbol of innocence; starlings, as a symbol of youthfulness. Anti-Villain : Lecter in his other appearances; a serial killer and cannibal who is unfailingly polite , and helps Clarice even when she can no longer offer him anything in return but her story. Asshole Victim : Dr.

Chilton is portrayed as sleazy, underhanded, uncooperative and a publicity hound, and almost costs Catherine Martin her life. At the end of the movie it's clear that Lecter will kill and eat him. Author Appeal : Hannibal's detailed knowledge of wines and foods apparently greatly reflects Harris' own expansive knowledge of food and wine. Berserk Button : Gumb hated his name being pronounced incorrectly. Jame rhymes with name. Big Bad Ensemble : Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill. Big Damn Heroes : Averted when the FBI successfully identify the killer only to end up at the wrong house. In both cases the real climax comes when the hero is unexpectedly thrust up against the killer, unprepared and with no backup. Bittersweet Ending : Clarice kills Buffalo Bill, and she successfully rescues Catherine. However, Hannibal has already escaped from police custody, and he is now free and able to commit more carnage . Black Best Friend : Both Hannibal and Clarice have one. Hannibal's is a combination of Black Best Friend , Worthy Opponent , and Friendly Enemy .

Black Comedy : After Clarice exposes Lecter to the most private and painful part of her past, which is her witnessing the slaughter of spring lambs and her inability to save them, Lecter thanks her and tears well up in his eyes. After she leaves he orders a second dinner: Lamb chops, extra rare. Boxed Crook : Hannibal is offered much better accommodations if he helps the feds find Catherine. Chekhov's Gun : Dr. Chilton warns Clarice not to leave anything in Hannibal Lecter's cell and mentions several objects, among them pens. He himself leaves one there, and there is a long shot of it. He later cannot find it for signing a document. Hannibal Lecter is then seen with a part of it in his hands... He uses it to unlock his cuffs, allowing him to kill his guards. We also see Bill's night-vision goggles early in the movie, and they don't reappear until the end. Chekhov's Skill : In the book but not the film, Clarice's hand strength and firing speed are tested on the FBI range. It comes in handy later.

Chess Master : Hannibal Lecter, who manages to both help Clarice get Buffalo Bill and architect his escape. *Click* Hello : As Buffalo Bill stalks Clarice through the darkened basement , she has no idea where he is—until he pulls back the hammer of his gun. Hearing this, she instantly turns around and empties her gun into him. Cold-Blooded Torture : Buffalo Bill enjoyed letting his captives loose in his basement, shooting their legs and watching them crawl around in the dark. However, he stopped playing his "basement games" because the struggling women damaged their skins and ended up being unusable to him. Combat Pragmatist : Lecter In his deranged Crowning Moment of Awesome he bites a guard on the face, then pepper sprays him, then bludgeons the guard's friend to death with a truncheon—a friend who is unarmed, and has his hands handcuffed to the cage bars. Then he listens to a piece of classical musicnote Johann Sebastian Bach's The Goldberg Variations, recorded by Glenn Gould in 1955 that makes the cell kind of like a high-end restaurant. The scene also acts as a ghastly sort of Brick Joke .

Lecter's face is serene, a callback to Chilton's line that Lecter's pulse "never got above 85," when attacking the nurse. Composite Character : In the film, Benjamin Raspail, a flutist in the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra and a patient of Lecter's who was romantically involved with Jame Gumb, with Klaus, one of Buffalo Bill's victims and whose head is discovered by Clarice. The new film character has Raspail's name and history as a lover of Gumb, but the fate of Klaus of being killed by Gumb. Gumb himself is a composite of three Real Life serial killers. His Wounded Gazelle Gambit is a hallmark of Ted Bundy, his tactic of imprisoning women in his basement is that of Gary Heidnik (though unlike Heidnik, Gumb has no sexual interest in his captives), and his skinning the women in order to make a suit of them was part of Ed Gein's MO. Consulting a Convicted Killer : The novel is the Trope Maker , along with Red Dragon . And most other depictions of this trope are intended as direct Homages to the film adaptation , especially Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter.

In Lambs, Clarice Starling visits Hannibal in his cell on multiple occasions for help with catching another serial killer called "Buffalo Bill". Hannibal ends up giving Clarice cryptic clues in exchange for information about Clarice's unhappy childhood. Hannibal later uses an agreement to disclose Buffalo Bill's real name in exchange for a transfer to another asylum as an opportunity to escape. Contrived Coincidence : The FBI asks Clarice to consult Lecter in the vague hope that his psychological expertise might give them some insight into Buffalo Bill's mind. By a complete coincidence, it turns out that Lecter already knows who Buffalo Bill is, that he has personally met him at least once, and that his first victim (who the authorities never found out about) was one of Lecter's old patients. Fancy that. Creepy Crossdresser : Buffalo Bill, though it's not a straight example. Both the novel and movie go out of their way to tell the audience that being a transsexual, in and of itself, is not connected to violence—specifically, Clarice says (and Lecter agrees) that Bill cannot be a transexual because transexuals are not violent .

According to Lecter, Bill only thinks he's a transsexual due to his "hatred of his own identity." This reflects the Fair for Its Day but out-of-date psychology that the book and film relied on. Transsexuality was conflated with transvestism (crossdressing) and was at the time thought to be a mental disorder, albeit a benign one. Which is kind of the point here: no records or proven cases indicated that transsexuality predisposed a person to violence, and so Bill is dismissed as being a "true" transsexual. Nowadays a distinction is drawn between transvestism (crossdressing now considered a common lifestyle choice) and transsexuality (transgender people whose gender identity doesn't align with their physical sex). Neither of these, in and of themselves, can cause (or prevent) someone to become a homicidal maniac. Creepy Souvenir : Buffalo Bill collects parts of the skin of his victims to make a "woman suit". Clarice: I'm still waiting for the shallowness of affect . Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?

: Clarice actually manages to deceive Lecter with a fake proposal from Senator Martin ï¿½ deceive a man who can guess her family history just from smelling the remnants of her perfume. He doesn't even realize it until Chilton tells him, and even then, he doesn't bear much ill-will towards Clarice, with no more than a couple biting remarks near the beginning of their next meeting. Disproportionate Retribution : As a serial killer, Hannibal is known for killing rude people; he really doesn't like people who are rude. His definition of "rude" can often be different than a normal person's. Double Meaning : One of the most famous lines in the movie has a second meaning that most people miss . Hannibal Lecter tells Clarice, "A census taker tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. (Slurp sound effect.)" Now, Clarice ï¿½ and most of the audience ï¿½ believe Lecter is merely confessing to one of his crimes.

What most people would not know is that a common treatment for Lecter's "brand of crazy" is to use drugs of a class known as MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors). There are several things one must not eat when taking MAOIs, as they can case fatally low blood pressure, and as a physician and psychiatrist himself, Dr. Lecter would be well aware of this. These things include liver, fava beans, and red wine. In short, Lecter was telling Clarice that he was off his medication. Not surprising, but very subtly done. A more blatant example comes after Hannibal has been moved to Memphis, and he and Clarice have a conversation while he's in the temporary cell. He tells Clarice the clue is "simplicity." (Butterick's) Simplicity is the name of a series of sewing patterns. Empty Elevator : Played with. In search for Lecter, the police find an already empty elevator. Enemy Rising Behind : Hannibal does this to the paramedic inside the ambulance in the movie.

Even Evil Has Standards : While Crawford insisted that Lecter did it to amuse himself, after Miggs assaulted Clarice sexually, he not only gave her the first important clue to Buffalo Bill—he also made Miggs kill himself for the inappropriate attack that he made upon Clarice. Failure Knight : Starling, with dead lambs forming the center of the story's central analogy. Fakeout Escape : Hannibal gets bonus points for not even escaping himself, but letting the guards load him into an ambulance, thinking he is their mutilated colleague. Fan Disservice : The Buffalo Bill dance scene. Faux Affably Evil : As respectful or even kind as Lecter can sometimes be, he is still a sadist. For a select few (Clarice, Barney and Sammie) he is genuinely nice, for the rest it is a sham to get him what he wants. Senator Martin is not only courteous to him but actually gives him the transfer he wants, unlike Clarice who deceived him. He expresses sympathy for Catherine, complains about Clarice and Crawford wasting time in the investigation and tells Senator Martin that he will help her without reading her affidavit so the investigation can go underway sooner.

Of course, he has known Buffalo Bill's real name the entire time, has sat through six deaths, was perfectly content to let Catherine die until he was given a transfer and didn't actually give his real name anyway. He also needlessly taunted Senator Martin about Catherine's predicament and took pleasure in her pain. FBI Agent : Starling is in training to be one; she only gets her badge at the end of the story. Foreshadowing : In the FBI Academy training exercise scene Clarice Starling forgets to check behind her after entering a room and an instructor behind her puts a gun to her head and "kills" her. At the climax, when Buffalo Bill sneaks up behind her in the dark and does a *Click* Hello she hears the sound, turns and shoots him to death. Every step of Lecter's elaborate prison break foreshadows some aspect of Buffalo Bill's M.O., possibly hinting that he was trying to leave Starling a few clues before he vanished. First, he mutilates one of the guards by tearing flaps of skin from his back and splaying them out like wings hinting at Bill's obsession with moths.

Then he gets out of prison by cutting off a guard's face and using it as a mask, hinting at Bill's desire to change his identity by making a suit from women's skin. Finally, he confuses the police by switching clothes with one of the guards and throwing the guard's corpse into an elevator shaft, much like Bill moves into his victim's house to confuse anyone who finds his old house. In his first scene, Lecter says that his drawing is the "Duomo, seen from the Belvedere." Buffalo Bill is in Belvedere, Ohio. Makes you wonder just how much Lecter was aware of before Clarice showed up. From a Certain Point of View : In the novel of Silence, Starling tells Lecter that her father was a marshal. Later on, when she is recounting to him how he died, Lecter catches enough clues to deduce that the man had actually been a night watchman. Starling's defense is that the official job description had read " night marshal ". (Lecter doesn't press the point.) Genius Bruiser : Hannibal, who along with brains is strong enough to carry bodies.

Genre Shift : Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs were cop thrillers with an emphasis on using forensics, profiling and detective work to track down a serial killer. Hannibal was blend of romance and revenge with the detective angle diminished. Manipulative Bastard : Hannibal Lecter; arguably also Chilton and Krendler, with their manipulations being wildly outclassed by Lecter's. Jack Crawford, who intentionally sent Clarice to Lecter with no clue as to why she was really doing it, because if she had known Lecter would have figured it out. He also entices Lecter with a phony deal from Senator Martin, and fakes a sexist attitude in front of the sheriff in order to get him to talk alone. Mascot Villain : Hannibal Lecter is notably closer to this than Villain-Based Franchise . While definitely the series' mascot and quite evil, he could only be considered a flat-out villain in the film Hannibal, and instead usually acts as an adviser to help catch other villains.

Meaningful Name : A starling is indeed a songbird, but if you live in New England, it is also a structure placed upstream of a bridge to intercept any large and dangerous objects that may damage it. Mind Game Ship : Clarice and Hannibal's relationship exemplify this. They even get a Relationship Upgrade in the third book. Monster Misogyny : Buffalo Bill only kills women, although we discover he has his... er, reasons...Somewhat shaken up by the implication that Jame Gumb doesn't specifically hate women as much as he is bitter towards them due to jealously, as indicated by his last line in the novel. In the film it's hinted at further during the infamous skin lotion scene. He refers to Catherine Martin as "it" and refuses to address her directly. Finally, her pleas for her mother get to him and he starts crying before screaming at her to put the lotion in the basket, indicating that he felt a moment of guilt or remorse for what he's doing, a sensitivity he tries to restrain by treating his captives as objects. This is pointed out by Clarice when she comments on the Senator's plea, noting that she repeats the name to humanize her daughter, making it harder to tear her up.

The Mountains of Illinois : During the raid of Buffalo Bill's alleged hideout in Calumet City, large hills can be seen in the background. (The scene was actually filmed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.) Named After Someone Famous : Hannibal Lecter takes his first name from Carthagian general Hannibal Barca. Buffalo Bill is nicknamed after Buffalo Bill . Night-Vision Goggles : In the 1991 Film of the Book Buffalo Bill uses these while carrying out surveillance of Catherine Martin and while hunting Clarice Starling through his darkened house at the climax. Stealth Pun : When Lecter escapes he murders two people and mutilates their bodies. One he strings up on the wall like a butterfly. He cuts the other's face off and wears it to disguse his identity. Both of these things are references to Buffalo Bill's crimes. Also, Lecter wearing the guard's face as a disguise is foreshadowing to the reveal that Bill wears women's skins in an attempt to change his identity; one last clue to Clarice. In the novel, Lecter falsely identifies a man named Billy Rubin as Buffalo Bill.

A search of Lecter's cell after he escapes reveals a note floating in his toilet with Chilton's name on it with numbers after some of the letters. FBI lab technicians figure out it's the formula for a pigment called bilirubin, which is a chief coloring agent in feces ï¿½ and is more or less the same color as Dr. Chilton's hair. Yes, Lecter basically called Chilton a shithead. At the FBI graduation party, when we see a shot of them slicing the cake shaped like the FBI logo, it's a good moment to shout out: "Justice is served!"/"Justice for all!" Step into the Blinding Fight : Jame Gumb turns off the lights and stalks Agent Starling while wearing night-vision goggles. Tear Off Your Face : Lecter does this to one of the guards as a component of his infamous escape sequence. Themed Aliases : Jame Gumb also goes by the name John Grant and identifies himself to Starling as Jack Gordon. There Are No Therapists : Subverted, since Lecter is imprisoned in a psychiatric institution and has been visited by a number of shrinks. Since he's a brilliant psychiatrist himself, this rarely works out right .

An even more interesting subversion is that Lecter mentions to Clarice that he's using his skills as a therapist to work with one of the other patients. He gives the impression that he's sincerely trying to help the man, though it's possible he's doing it out of sheer boredom (and more possible he made the whole thing up to screw with her head.) Timeshifted Actor : Young Clarice in the flashback to her father's funeral. Title Drop : The phrase "the silence of the lambs" are actually the last words in the novel. Trivial Title : It refers to an anecdote told in the story. It's also a Title Drop as the last words of the novel (not of The Film of the Book ). Transsexual : 'Buffalo Bill' thinks he is a trans woman, though if you trust Lecter, he's not. He doesn't want to be a woman: he wants to be his mother. Intentionally invoked by the acting of Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill, when he mocks Catherine's screaming. The flat, emotionless sound, combined with his completely blank facial expression create an effect that is entirely inhuman. Also employed by Hopkins, who did his best to never blink on camera.

Unintentionally Notorious Crime : Buffalo Bill selects his victims based on bodily measurements , but his latest turned out to be a senator's daughter, giving his case far more attention than he'd wished. Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World : In the book version of (the film mostly dropped the plotline) Clarice is juggling her hunt for Buffalo Bill with her FBI training, knowing she's in danger of being held back for non-attendance despite being a brilliant student who's busy doing Bureau work. What Happened to the Mouse? : Catherine, who lives in an apartment, is shown in the film to have a cat she didnï¿½t have time to feed when she was abducted. Itï¿½s never made clear whether anyone else fed the cat instead of her. Worthy Opponent : Zigzagged a little. Chilton clearly feels like he is this to Lecter, but Lecter despises him and considers him an idiot; case in point, he faked going along with a psychological profile Chilton was trying to do on him, then had his own results, of what he had learned about Chilton, published first and made him a laughingstock.

Lecter's true worthy opponent is Crawford; when Chilton blusters about Crawford not wanting to openly ask for Lecter's help because Crawford thought Lecter would fake helping for the entertainment, Lecter admits to himself that's what would have happened, and is impressed that Crawford thought of it. Wounded Gazelle Gambit : "Buffalo Bill" uses a fake cast and an unwieldy object he's supposedly trying to put in a van to lure Catherine into position to kidnap her. Fun fact: This was frequently the M.O. of Ted Bundy when he was active as a serial killer in the 1970s ( Impersonating an Officer being the other). He would put an arm in a sling to fake injury, approach his victims asking for help carrying something to his car, and then beat them unconscious and kidnap them. You Monster! : Dr. Frederick Chilton, the head of the insane asylum that houses the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter, describes Lecter as a monster. Chilton: [to Clarice Starling] Oh, he's a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive.

From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.

Question: With which type of wine did Hannibal Lecter say he was going to wash down his Liver and Fava beans?
Answer: (A nice) Chianti